MICHELLE SCHAPIRO

WAYS OF MAKING PEOPLE DISAPPEAR (2023-Present)

In 2023, when I began making work for this project, at least 32 people were killed in the United States ostensibly for being transgender. There were likely more deaths motivated by transphobia that were simply not recorded as such. In July of 2023, O'Shae Sibley was murdered outside a Brooklyn gas station for openly dancing and showcasing queer joy with his friends. Countless children are being attacked by legislation barring gender-affirming healthcare. In America, in 2024, it felt increasingly unsafe to be queer or trans. Today, each day brings new horrors and indignities to the LGBTQIA+ community, as the political landscape in the US grows bolder in its persecution of queer and trans individuals.

This project seeks to explore that lack of safety, and began with thoughts of "Can we just live?" that I could not ignore. For the past few years, I have been making portraits of LGBTQ folks simply living. I document participants sitting on their front steps, riding their bicycles, commuting to their jobs. I photograph friends and neighbors, living their lives and their truths. These images hold power on their own, but I then make another frame with the subject gone from the image, speaking to the literal and figurative erasure of queer lives. The empty space where a human being once stood is a powerful reminder of what’s at stake if queer and trans lives are erased. 

February 2025

What Kind of Times Are These
Adrienne Rich

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you anything?
Because you still listen, because in times like these to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.

SHOW ME WHERE IT HURTS (2023-Present)

Like pressing down on a bruise, tracking healing and seeing where pain remains, Show Me Where It Hurts is a visual exploration of the geography where psychic harm has taken place. Press down on a map instead, marking places that have left emotional bruises, to see whether the mapping encourages healing.

I HIDE MYSELF WITHIN MY FLOWER (2024-Present)

A black handkerchief in your left back pocket means you possess an interest in heavy S&M as a top. Gray is for bondage, purple for piercing, yellow watersports. Where you place the hanky denotes whether you’d like to give or receive. This extensive code of colors and placements came about in the 1970s so that queer people could signal their proclivities to those in the know. The precise origin of the code is up for debate, but the meanings we know now began to be codified in New York and San Francisco in the 1970s amongst gay men. Now individuals of all genders use it, and it’s only grown more elaborate, enabling queers to flag their often very specific interests when out in a bar or club, without having to speak a word aloud. The resurgence of hanky code amongst young queers inspired this body of work, messages crafted using floral code, a secret language that has been used for centuries, but solidified and common during Victorian times. 

Queers throughout history have been creative with their messaging, from Anne Lister’s coded diaries about sexual encounters with women to Oscar Wilde’s green carnations. Emily Dickinson wrote often about flowers and longing, linking the two. Messages concealed from outsiders, from straight folks who see just a bandana in a pocket, or nothing at all. A rose is a rose is a rose, unless it’s a love letter from my queer heart to yours.

SOMETHING OTHER THAN (2020-Present)